Discovering the Male MysteriesWelcome to Discovering the Male Mysteries with Mel Mystery. This blog is a supplement to my podcast is for and about gay and bi pagan men. My podcasts are about what it is to be gay, what it is to be pagan, what it is to be men — sometimes as separate topics and sometimes all meshed together as one. I started this endeavor after seeing that there were few, if any, podcasts out there on this topic. The podcasts are informative, and present topics that challenge conventional thinking.

Posts tagged “Bisexual”

The 19th Century German writer and pioneering homosexual rights activist, Karl Ulrich coined the term Uranian to describe a third sex which he believed was “a female psyche in a male body.”

Ulrich himself was homosexual and remembered wearing girls’ clothes, playing with girls, and wanting to be a girl as a young child. He later had his first homosexual experience with his riding instructor at the age of fourteen. At the age of 37, Ulrich’s came out to his family and friends and began writing about homosexuality and homosexual identities. He even publically petitioned the German Congress to repeal anti-homosexual laws. As a result of his activism, he lost his job as a legal advisor and also was in constant legal trouble – not because of his actions, but because of his words.

Ulrichs called for the inalienable rights (as established by nature) of homosexuals to live and love without persecution. The only things he felt should be prohibited were the seduction of male minors, the violation of other people’s civil rights, and public indecency.

Ulrichs wrote a total of twelve books on the topic of homosexuality. In those books, he came up with a number of terms to describe sexual orientation and gender identity. These terms were inspired by the ancient Greek work Plato’s Symposium which discussed two kinds of love – heterosexual love born from Aphrodite Dione (the Greek goddess of love born of a female) and homosexual love born from Aphrodite Urania (the Greek goddess of love born from a male). Ulrichs coined the terms Urning to describe men who loved men and Dioningin to describe men who are attracted to women. He later came up with terms to describe homosexual women, bisexuals, and intersex people.

Below is the list of the terms he coined:

Urning – A biological male with a female psyche who is attracted to men

Urningin – A biological female with a male psyche who is attracted to women

Dioning – A biological male who is heterosexual and masculine

Dioningin – A biological female who is heterosexual and feminine

Uranodioning – A biological male who is bisexual

Uranodioningin – A biological female who is bisexual

Zwitter – Someone who is intersexual having the biological organs of both sexes

Ulrich further subdivided his terms for male sexuality:

Mannling – A masculine homosexual male interested effeminate men

Weibling – A feminine homosexual male interested in masculine men

Manuring – A feminine heterosexual male

Zwischen-Urning – A homosexual male interested in adolescent males

Conjunctive – Homosexual men with tender and passionate feelings for other men

Disjunctive – Heterosexual men with tender feelings for other men, but who are sexually attracted to women (think of this as a Victorian term for “bromance”).

Virilisierte Mannlinge — Homosexual men who have learned to act heterosexual

Uraniaster or Uranisierter Mann – A heterosexual man who engages in situational homosexuality when females are not available

One thing I find interesting about this list is that Ulrichs had no terms for masculine homosexual men interested in other masculine men or for feminine homosexual men who are interested in other feminine men.